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外文文献

The Important Of Financial Risk

Sohnke M. Bartram Gregory W. Brown and Murat Atamer

Abstract:This paper examines the determinants of equity price risk for a largesample of non-financial corporations in the United States from 1964 to 2008. Weestimate both structural and reduced form models to examine the endogenous natureof corporate financial characteristics such as total debt debt maturity cash holdingsand dividend policy. We find that the observed levels of equity price risk areexplained primarily by operating and asset characteristics such as firm age size assettangibility as well as operating cash flow levels and volatility. In contrast impliedmeasures of financial risk are generally low and more stable than debt-to-equity ratios.Our measures of financial risk have declined over the last 30 years even as measuresof equity volatility e.g. idiosyncratic risk have tended to increase. Consequentlydocumented trends in equity price risk are more than fully accounted for by trends inthe riskiness of firms’ assets. Taken together the results suggest that the typical U.S.firm substantially reduces financial risk by carefully managing financial policies. As aresult residual financial risk now appears negligible relative to underlying economicrisk for a typical non-financial firm.

Keywords：Capital structure； financial risk； risk management；corporate finance1

1. Introduction

The financial crisis of 2008 has brought significant attention to the effects offinancial leverage. There is no doubt that the high levels of debt financing by financialinstitutions and households significantly contributed to the crisis. Indeed evidenceindicates that excessive leverage orchestrated by major global banks e.g. through themortgage lending and collateralized debt obligations and the so-called “shadowbanking system” may be the underlying cause of the recent economic and financialdislocation. Less obvious is the role of financial leverage among nonfinancial firms.To date problems in the U.S. non-financial sector have been minor compared to thedistress in the financial sector despite the seizing of capital markets during the crisis.For example non-financial bankruptcies have been limited given that the economicdecline is the largest since the great depression of the 1930s. In fact bankruptcyfilings of non-financial firms have occurred mostly in U.S. industries e.g.automotive manufacturing newspapers and real estate that faced fundamentaleconomic pressures prior to the financial crisis. This surprising fact begs the question“How important is financial risk for non-financial firms” At the heart of this issue isthe uncertainty about the determinants of total firm risk as well as components of firmrisk.

Recent academic research in both asset pricing and corporate finance hasrekindled an interest in analyzing equity price risk. A current strand of the assetpricing literature examines the finding of Campbell et al. 2001 that

firm-specificidiosyncratic risk has tended to increase over the last 40 years. Other work suggeststhat idiosyncratic risk may be a priced risk factor see Goyal and Santa-Clara 2003among others. Also related to these studies is work by Pástor and Veronesi 2003showing how investor uncertainty about firm profitability is an important determinantof idiosyncratic risk and firm value. Other research has examined the role of equityvolatility in bond pricing e.g. Dichev 1998 Campbell Hilscher and Szilagyi2008.

However much of the empirical work examining equity price risk takes the riskof assets as given or tries to explain the trend in idiosyncratic risk. In contrast thispaper takes a different tack in the investigation of equity price risk. First we seek tounderstand the determinants of equity price risk at the firm level by considering totalrisk as the product of risks inherent in the firms operations i.e. economic or businessrisks and risks associated with financing the firms operations i.e. financial risks.Second we attempt to assess the relative importance of economic and financial risksand the implications for financial policy.

Early research by Modigliani and Miller 1958 suggests that financial policymay be largely irrelevant for firm value because investors can replicate manyfinancial decisions by the firm at a low cost i.e. via homemade leverage andwell-functioning capital markets should be able to distinguish between financial andeconomic distress. Nonetheless financial policies such as adding debt to the capitalstructure can magnify the risk of equity. In contrast recent research on corporate riskmanagement suggests that firms may also be able to reduce risks and increase valuewith financial policies such as hedging with financial derivatives. However thisresearch is often motivated by substantial deadweight costs associated with financialdistress or other market imperfections associated with financial leverage. Empiricalresearch provides conflicting accounts of how costly financial distress can be for atypical publicly traded firm.

We attempt to directly address the roles of economic and financial risk byexamining determinants of total firm risk. In our analysis we utilize a large sample ofnon-financial firms in the United States.Our goal of identifying the most importantdeterminants of equity price risk volatility relies on viewing financial policy astransforming asset volatility into equity volatility via financial leverage. Thusthroughout the paper we consider financial leverage as the wedge between assetvolatility and equity volatility. For example in a static setting debt provides financialleverage that magnifies operating cash flow volatility. Because financial policy isdetermined by owners and managers we are careful to examine the effects of firms’asset and operating characteristics on financial policy. Specifically we examine avariety of characteristics suggested by previous research and as clearly as possibledistinguish between those associated of the company(i.e. factors determining economic risk) and those associated with financing the firm(i.e. factors determining financial risk).We then allow economic risk to be a determinant of financial policy in the structural framework of Leland and Toft(1996),or alternatively, in a reduced form model of financial leverage.An advantage of the structural model approach is that we are able to account for both the possibility of financial and operating implciations of

some factors(e.g .dividends),as well as the endogenous nature of the bankruptcy decision and financial policy in general.

Our proxy for firm risk is the volantility if common stock returns derived from calculating the standard deviation of daliy equity returns.Our proxies for econmic risk are designed to capture the essential charactersitics of the firm’s operations and assets that determine the cash flow generating process for the firm.For example,firm size and age provide measures of line of –business maturity; tangible assets(plant,property,and equipment)serve as a proxy for the ‘hardness’of a firm’s assets;capital expenditures measure captial intensity as well as growth potential.Operating profitability and operating profit volatility serve as measures of the timeliness and riskiness of cash flows.To understand how financial factors affect firm risk,we examine total debt,debt maturity,dividend payouts,and holdings of cash and short-term investments.

The primary resuit or our analysis is surpriing:factors determining economic risk for a typical company exlain the vast majority of the varation in equity volatility.Correspondingly,measures of implied financial leverage are much lower than observed debt ratios. Specifically, in our sample covering 1964-2008 average actual net financial (market) leverage is 1.50 compared to our estimates of between 1.03 and 1.11 (depending on model specification and estimation technique).This suggests that firms may undertake other financial policise to manage financial risk and thus lower effective leverage to nearly negligible levels.These policies might include dynamically adjusting financial variables such as debt levels,debt maturity,or cash holdings (see,for example , Acharya,Almeida,and Campello,2007).In addition,many firms also utilize explicit financial risk management techniques such as the use of financial dervatives,contractual arrangements with investors (e.g. lines of credit,call provisions in debt contracts ,or contingencies in supplier contracts ),spcial purpose vehicles (SPVs),or other alternative risk transfer techniques.

The effects of our ecnomic risk factors on equity volatility are generally highly statiscally significant, with predicted size and age of the firm.This is intuitive since large and mature firms typically have more stable lines of business,which shoule be reflected in the volatility. This suggests that companties with higher and more stable operating cash flows are less likely to go bankrupt, and therefore are potentially less risky .Among economic risk variables,the effects of firm size ,prfit volatility,and dividend policy on equity volatility stand out. Unlike some previous studies,our careful treatment of the endogeneity of financial policy confirms that leveage increases total firm risk. Otherwise,fiancial risk factors are not reliably to total risk.

Given the large literature on financial policy , it is no surprise that financial variables are , at least in part , determined by the econmic risks frims take.However, some of the specific findings are unexpected. For example , in a simple model of capital structure ,dividend payouts should increase financial leverage since they represent an outflow of cash from the firm(i.e.,increase net debt ).We find that dividends are associated with lower risk. This suggests that paying dividends is not as much a product of financial policy as a characteristic of a firm’s operations(e.g.,a mature company with limited growth opportunities). We also estimate how

sensitivities to different risk factors have changed over time.Our result indicate that most relations are fairly stable. One exception is firm age which prior to 1983 tends to be positively related to risk and has since been consisitently negatively related to risk.This is related to findings by Brown and Kapadoa (2007) that recent trends in idiosyncratic risk are related to stock listings by younger and riskier firms.

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